


A Network, A Web

by IzzyBells



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Child Neglect, Depression, Explicit Language, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kidnapping, Minor Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Mugging, Original Character-centric, Underage Drinking, character goes through hell, fun science fiction stuff mixed with real biomedical tech, is this mary sue? heck if i know, learning the importance of having a support system, or at least depression the way i've experienced it with some embellishment, original character death, peter parker gives the best hugs, unabashedly toeing the mary sue line
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-05-20 21:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19385263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IzzyBells/pseuds/IzzyBells
Summary: *Set a year-ish after Spider-Man: Homecoming, includes CACW canon, written pre-Infinity War*  Lucy Coleman is going through hell.  Her whole life is falling apart, and she's only a sophomore in high school.  Not only does she have to hide visible superpowers, she also has to deal with her family falling apart at the seams.  Thank God she has friends she can count on, including one friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.(I wanted to try writing a character who goes through emotional trauma.  It starts out not good and gets exponentially worse.  Also, I wanted to write a platonic relationship with Peter, because he honestly would be such a lovely supportive guy to have in your corner, and I want to maintain Peter/MJ goodness at least in the background)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hellooooo this is the first work I'm posting on this site! How fun is that! As mentioned in the summary, this takes place about a year after Homecoming and includes CW canon, but I started writing before Infinity War came out so this is technically canon-divergent.
> 
> ***WARNING: this chapter includes a mugging, discussion of basically torture, a reference to furries, underage drunkenness, explicit language, reference to child neglect. (I'm sorry I promise this is like the most physically violent part of the whole story)

Whatever anyone says, it is absolutely not her fault that she’ll be found a week from now naked in a dumpster with a residual blood alcohol content too high for a fifteen-year-old. This is the only thing running through her head right now besides the fact that HOLY SHIT SHE’S IN A LOT OF PAIN AND SHE’S IN A DARK ALLEY AND IT’S TOO LATE AT NIGHT AND THESE MEN ARE REALLY SCARY AND WHAT WAS SHE THINKING GOING OUTSIDE BY HERSELF. To be fair, she goes outside by herself all the time to get to and from school, but that’s in broad daylight.

Again, Lucy opens her mouth to scream, but the sound never comes out. She feels that rippling tingly feeling again that means she’s now a different color as the man with the jacket kicks her in the stomach yet again. She heaves up bile.

“Nothing in her coat pockets,” the man with the hat says, dropping her puffy jacket in what Lucy is sure is a puddle of water. He eyes her warily. “She’s all concrete-lookin’ again, Mike. What the fuck d’you think she is?”

“Dunno, don’ care,” Jacket Man says. There’s a metallic scrape-click sound, he crouches down, and Lucy feels cold metal against her throat. She thinks her heart skips three beats in a row. That’s a knife, that’s a fucking knife—

“C’mon, man, she’s just a kid…” Hat Guy says.

Jacket Man shrugs, a grin on his face. Her stomach drops, and her skin ripples again. “Look at her, though. Don’t you wanna be able to prove you’ve seen a human lizard or whatever the hell she is?”

Hat Guy shakes his head. “What’re you even gonna do, slice off some skin?”

Oh hell no, Lucy thinks, frozen in fear.

Jacket Man scratches at his face, and the sound of his nails against his 5 o’clock shadow gives her goosebumps. “I was thinkin’ more like slice off a hand. Maybe her whole damn head.”

If Lucy was scared before, now she was terrified. Even her skin seemed to be too scared to shift.

“Fuck, man, I didn’t sign up for murder tonight,” Hat Guy says, and she thinks he sounds spooked too. “Let’s just go—“

“Not yet.”

Hat Guy gives Jacket Man a look of disbelief. “Don’t tell me you’re a scaly, now. That shit’s just weird, man.”

“If a scaly is anything like a furry, I don’t even wanna know,” a new voice says. Lucy looks over reflexively, and there’s Spider-Man.

The knife presses a little harder against her throat, and she’s glad she’s all scales again because otherwise she probably would’ve started to bleed by now. Lucy feels another jolt in her gut, though, because the thought of a knife against your throat is terrifying scales or not, and Lucy thinks Spider-Man jumps, just a little, as she feels her skin ripple for the countless time tonight. He doesn’t stare long if at all, though, and the knife is gone from her throat and the guy is on his back yards away from her immediately and the other guy is running but Spider-Man reels him in with a web and ties the both of them up together. After all of that, he retrieves her soggy jacket, kneels next to her, and offers his hand. She takes it and lets him pull her to her feet. Her Converse are muddy.

“Are you okay, Miss?” he asks politely, as if he hadn’t just destroyed a couple muggers.

She nods. “Yeah, I think so. M’ names Lucy.” Okay, so maybe she’s a little tipsier than she thought if she’s slurring.

“Nice to meet you, Lucy. I’m your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.” Lucy feels like he’d be grinning if she could see his face, a real boyish, teenager grin. He sounds so young, now that she’s listening to him in person and not in YouTube videos. “Can I walk you home?”

She nods, smiles, and wraps her arms around her middle, accepting the wet coat she know will only make her colder. The tail end of October has finally brought nipping winds to the city, and her stomach is sore from Jacket Guy’s shoes. They begin walking, and as her heart slows back down to a normal rate and the terror-borne adrenaline rush dies down, she feels the tingles ripple across her skin again, calmer this time. From the instant relief, Lucy knows every single illusion she usually tries to maintain is now gone, leaving her in all her scaly-skinned and wiry-haired glory. She can almost feel Spider-Man prickle beside her, but then she trips on an uneven crack in the sidewalk and he’s all chivalry again, catching her easily with a hand at her elbow and another at her opposite shoulder.

“Easy, there. Are you sure you’re okay?” He’s so concerned she giggles. He pauses for a moment, looking straight at her, before they start walking again. “You seem…a little drunk.”

She waves it off. “Jus’ a lil’ tipsy, maybe.” Lucy giggles again, the events of the night leaving her not only alcohol-drunk, but literally and figuratively punch-drunk. “Who can really blame me, anyway? I mean, look a’ me.” In her haste to justify herself, she almost smacks Spider-Man in the face trying to hold out her arm in example. “I’m all…all scaly ’n’ shit.”

Spider-Man takes her flung-out arm to hold it not so close to his face, inspecting it, she thinks. “Whoa, those are actual scales. I thought it was just the light at first,” he says, a little awe in his voice. He looks back up to Lucy. “You’re underage-drinking because you have superpowers?”

Lucy frowns. “Yes? No. Kinda?” She sighs loudly, and almost loses her balance rolling her eyes. He steadies her with a hand on her shoulder. “’S’ more complicated, I guess. My parents’re getting a divorce.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“’S’ not your fault,” she replies, shrugging.

His hand migrates from her shoulder across her back, where it stays put on her other shoulder. Lucy immediately feels warmer and safer with his arm around her upper back. It’s a good thing it’s there, too, because she almost trips over her own two feet a second later. “It sucks though, so I’m sorry you have to go through it.”

“I guess you can be sorry, then. But yeah, they’re divorcing—’s’ that a word? Divorcing?—an’ my sisters ’n’ I have to sit through this massive custody battle an’ I’m really stressed out about it ’cause neither of ’em’re good at being parents in the firs’ place.” Usually, Lucy doesn’t enjoy talking to strangers, and she especially would never spill her personal guts to one, but the whiskey she had before she left her house has apparently loosened her tongue, and she kind of doesn’t care. It feels good to talk about it, and Spider-Man isn’t stopping her, so Lucy keeps talking. “M’ dad’s gone a lot on trips for work, so he’s, like, never home, so he’s an unfit guardian or whatever. My mom’s kinda a shit mom, like she forgets about us s’metimes when she’s busy at the lab ’n’ gets mad if we call her ’n’ ask when she’s coming home.” They’re hit by a gust of wind as they turn a corner, and Lucy shudders, wrapping her arms tighter around her middle. “I dunno who we’ll end up with. Dad can only have us if he can find a family member to watch us while he’s away, an’ Mom can only have us if she ‘members to come home ’n’ feed us dinner.”

When they’ve walked in silence for a time and it’s clear Lucy’s done talking, Spider-Man piped back up. “That really, really sucks.”

“Yeah, I know.”

He clears his throat next to her. “And it’s really stressful keeping superpowers a secret, so that’s, like, double stress.”

“Yep.”

“Do you, uh, have someone you can talk to about it? Talking to someone is usually more helpful than drinking, you know.” She thinks she can hear a reprimand in his voice, which is funny, because she’s pretty convinced he’s not all that much older than she is.

Lucy smiles at the thought of being a teenager and being scolded by a teenaged superhero. Then she remembers his question and her smile falls, and she shakes her head. “I have friends, I guess, bu’ my one close friend whose parents’re divorced was, like, five when it happened. An’ it wasn’ as messy as my parents’s.” She snorts bitterly. “An’ of course none of ’em’ve got weird chameleon powers.”

“Chameleon? Why do you say chameleon?”

“’Cause I accident’ly ate my mom’s chameleon virus, duh. Chameleon powers.”

Spider-Man stops short, and Lucy almost falls backwards because of it, but then he catches them both and resumes walking normally, only with a new spring in his step. “Wait, chameleon virus? Was this an intentional thing, the chameleon powers? Why did your mom have a chameleon virus?” These questions are shot off quickly, and Lucy can hear the excitement in his voice.

“Um, not really on purpose, no,” she answers slowly. “Kinda, but not ’cause of superpowers…um, my mom’s a genecitist—genecicist—she does stuff with DNA—an’ she’s been working on gene therapy. She’s testing new virus carriers for DNA with chameleons ’n’ mice. I accident’ly ate some is all.”

She can feel Spider-Man almost bursting with questions, but she stops abruptly before he can fire more questions at her that she can barely answer sober. She almost loses her balance and falls again by stopping like that, but they’re at the bottom of her townhouse steps. Spider-Man looks up at the brick facade and back to her, dropping his arm and turning to face her.

“This is your house?”

“Yep.” Lucy feels a lot colder now that she isn’t able to leech his body heat, and she wants to get inside, but he seems like he has something to say.

The masked superhero shifts from foot to foot before speaking again. “Uh, since you don’t really have anyone to talk to, like especially about your powers, I could give you my number? Just in case you want someone to talk to. I mean, you don’t have to use it or anything, but you can trust me to keep it a secret. I’m, uh, pretty good at that. And there aren’t many people around that do understand, after all.”

Lucy smiles. “Yeah, okay.” She’s pretty sure he isn’t hitting on her, but no matter if he is or isn’t, it would be nice to at least know she has someone who’ll listen and can relate if she needs it. She digs around in her jacket; luckily she has a pencil in one of the inside pockets. It’s one of the small pencils from Ikea. She must’ve stuck one in her pocket the last time they went furniture shopping. Lucy unfurls a balled-up gum wrapper, smooths it out as best as she can, and hands both the wrapper and the pencil to Spider-Man. It only takes a moment for him to scribble out a string of digits on the paper side of the wrapper, using his knee as a table. 

“Use it wisely,” he says, handing back his number and the pencil.

“I will,” she says.

“Okay, well, have a good night. And don’t drink any more!” he says, starting to walk away, stepping backwards.

Lucy nods, smiles, and hops up the steps to her front door to let herself in with the spare key she knows they keep in the flower pot next to the door. When she glances back, he’s gone, though she has a feeling he’s still there, watching to make sure she gets inside. Quietly, she shuts the door behind her and starts up the stairs to go to bed, feeling better than she has in a long time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much more chill chapter this time around. I do wanna mention, the family problems I'm writing about are based on and inspired by things my friends or I have dealt with in the past, so I am trying my best to be realistic about Lucy's mental state. I hope I can do these issues and dynamics justice in my depiction of how it feels to be in the middle of them. If you are going through any kind of struggle, please seek out the support you need to be safe and healthy, and know you are worthy and deserving of love.

All through school the next day, Lucy wavers back and forth on whether or not to text Spider-Man. Between that and her headache, she can’t focus on anything, meaning she misses everything that happens in geometry and probably fails her biology quiz. At least it’s only a couple weeks into second quarter; she’ll make it up. She does force herself to pay attention in history, though, since she actually likes that subject. During lunch, Zaria, her best friend since elementary school, sneaks Lucy an aspirin from her bag and makes her drink a whole bottle of water with her food. They’re not technically allowed to have medicine of any sort on them during the day, but Zaria is literally always prepared for any occasion with ibuprofen, aspirin, antihistamine, pseudophedrine, the good Ricola herbal cough drops, Band-Aids of various sizes, safety pins, bobby pins, both tampons and pads (despite using a DivaCup herself), tissues, napkins, plastic silverware, hair ties, a comb, a lighter, even military-grade caffeine gum. It’s a little bit ridiculous, but Zaria has saved not only her own and Lucy’s lives but also the lives of their fellow classmates. 

“Something’s on your mind,” she states between sips of her V-8.

Zaria is the kind of person you can tell anything to, and it’s a good thing she doesn’t believe in gossiping, because Lucy’s pretty sure she could single-handedly take down the entire social order of the sophomore class, if not the entire school, what with all the people she’s been a shoulder and advice-dispenser to. Lucy sighs and sets down her tasteless turkey wrap, watching it begin to unfold in the plastic container, before she launches into the story of what went down the night before, without the superpower thing, of course. When she’s finished, Lucy drops her head to Zaria’s sweater-clad shoulder.

“I just don’t know where to go from here. I mean, I spilled basically my entire life story to a complete stranger,” she concludes.

“Sweetie, he’s not a complete stranger; he’s Queens’ own friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.” Zaria cards her fingers through Lucy’s cropped dark curls before nudging her back upright. “Just text him. At least make sure he gets your number before you text him out of the blue and he doesn’t remember giving you his number anymore.”

“Okay. You’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.” Zaria gets up to toss her trash, and when she sits back down, Lucy knows she must look worried again because one of her friends’ perfectly arched eyebrows raises. “What?”

Lucy cringes. “You’re going to think I’m an idiot.”

“I probably will,” she nods.

“Um…you’re not offended that I might text Spider-Man about my problems instead of you?” By Zaria’s unimpressed expression, Lucy assumes she was right, and she is an idiot.

“You’re right. You are an idiot,” Zaria deadpans. “It’s okay to expand your support network, hon. God knows mine is all over the place. I know you have me and Mel, and I don’t know if you tell Gino anything or not, but that’s still a pretty small circle of friends you actually talk to about serious stuff. If you feel comfortable adding Spidey to your network, Loo, then I’m all for it!”

Lucy texts him in study hall, tired of worrying over it. Of course the gum wrapper number is already saved in her phone; she put it in last night.

{ Hi, this is Lucy. Just making sure you’ll have my number before we both forget }

For the next 17 agonizing minutes, Lucy tries to understand what she was supposed to have learned that morning in geometry by reading the textbook section. Really, she tries. The fact that it makes absolutely no sense to her isn’t helped by her phone sitting in her lap, taunting her. When he finally texts back, Lucy scrambles to ignore her homework and look at his message, almost dropping her phone and her illusion in the process. The dude one seat to her right gives her a dude-chill-out-it’s-just-a-text look, and she gives him a half-sheepish wince in return.

[ hey lucy, doing ok? ]

{ Yeah I’m okay, just in study hall. suffering }

[ oh yikes ]

[ don’t get in trouble with your phone ]

{ Thanks, I won’t lol }

With that out of the way, Lucy struggles through the remainder of her geometry until the bell rings. After study hall, she heads to biology, where she collapses into her seat next to Mel and behind Gino. “Have you looked at the geometry homework yet?” she asks the boy in front of her. He twists around to face her, revealing an apologetic look. Gino and Lucy both take geometry in the morning together, and he’s much better at it than Lucy is.

“What, is it hard?” Mel asks, looking between the two. She has geometry for the next class.

Gino shrugs. “The notes weren’t bad,” he offers.

“Yeah, well the homework is, as usual, three hundred times more complicated than the notes.” Lucy sighs. “Someone distract me before I give up on school altogether.”

Mel shrugs and adjusts her position so that one leg is tucked up underneath her in her chair. “Well, did you hear about the new executive order signed today?” she asks, a bitter tone bleeding into her question as she tucks her hanging bangs back behind her ear.

While Zaria is prepared for every situation that requires a mom, Mel is prepared for every situation that requires a liberal activist. She’s always up-to-date on what the current administration has done and is going to do, and her opinions on women’s and minority’s rights are just as strong as her voice is loud. Honestly, Lucy doesn’t understand how anyone can handle so much heavy and depressing news all the time, but Mel does, somehow. Lucy listens to Mel explain the negative repercussions to whatever has just happened in the political world until their biology teacher starts class.

Later, after school is out, Lucy heads home with Zaria, just like she has ever since they decided not to put up with the high school’s crazy-early bus route—the girls only live a couple blocks apart, and they know for a fact they can get to school faster than the buses can. At the beginning of their walk, Zaria entertains Lucy with the story of what went down in her art class that day when the art teacher discovered all the dicks subtly painted into one of her classmates’ still life. She has Lucy laughing so hard she can’t breath, and Zaria laughs with her until she recovers her breath.

Zaria pauses then, and gently bumps Lucy with her shoulder. “Hey, did you ever text Spidey?”

“I did, yeah,” Lucy affirms, “and he did text me back pretty quickly.”

“And he still seems nice?”

“Yeah, he does.”

Zaria nods. “That’s good.” The friends slow their pace and pause at the street corner where they part ways. Zaria taps the toe of one of her pristine Adidas sneakers against the sidewalk. “Make sure you call if you need anything, okay?”

Arms wrapped around her middle to ward off the October chill, Lucy nods. The motion disrupts the hair tucked behind her ear, and a few of her curls blow into her face. “I always do,” she answers, brushing her hair out of her mouth.

“Well you didn’t call me last night when you decided to get yourself drunk and mugged,” Zaria corrects as she digs her hands deeper into her jacket pockets. 

“I’m sorry,” Lucy sighs. “I should’ve called you. It’s just, y’know, my parents—“

“So call me! I love you, but alcohol is not the way to deal with your parents fighting about you.”

Lucy nods again. “I know. I’ll see you, okay? It’s getting colder.”

Zaria extracts one hand from her pocket to give Lucy a quick hug before she crosses the street, leaving Lucy to turn the corner towards her own home. As she walks the last couple blocks, Lucy tries not to think about whether or not her dad would be back after last night and instead wonders what she’ll be for Halloween this year. She’ll have to take her sisters trick-or-treating herself, most likely.

The silver sedan Lucy knows so well is gone from the driveway. It’s good that Lucy can at least prepare herself before she walks into an empty house. She bounces up the steps to the front door, finds the right key on the lanyard she usually keeps in her backpack, and lets herself into her house. 

“Anna, Allie, I’m home!” Lucy calls as she pauses to take her shoes off in the front hall. 

Feet thump against the floor upstairs, and soon enough her youngest sister appears at the bannister. “Anna isn’t home yet,” Allie says. “She has a club after school today, remember?”

Lucy picks up her shoes and starts up the stairs. “Is she walking home or is Mom picking her up?”

“How am I supposed to know?” the ten-year-old snaps.

“Watch your snark, kid.” Lucy turns into her bedroom, followed closely by Allie. She shoots a text to Anna to ask about her commute plans before sliding her arms out of her coat sleeves. “School go well today?”

Allie shrugs and sits heavily on Lucy’s stool. “It was fine.” 

From Allie’s posture and expression, Lucy gathers it was not fine. “Are you sure it was fine?”

“I got in trouble because Briana was stealing stuff on people’s desks again and I yelled for her to stop really loud,” she admits. “I hate Briana.”

“I thought yesterday you said you had lunch with her and she was really nice?”

Allie sighs. “That was Breanna. I like Breanna. I hate Briana. It’s not that hard.”

Lucy sits on her bed opposite her little sister. “You know, hate’s a pretty strong word,” she says, swallowing a lump in her throat. “A word that strong has to be used carefully or it’ll lose its meaning.”

“But I do hate her,” Allie says, mouth set in a serious line.

With a soft click of her tongue, Lucy shakes her head and bends down to take her shoes off. “You’re sure you don’t hate her behavior instead? That’s better to say than just ‘I hate her.’”

Allie nods when Lucy sits back up. “I guess it’s better, but even if she acted better I still think I would hate her.”

“Fair enough.” Lucy stands and walks across her room to hang up her coat, turning away from her little sister. Facing the other way like this, she can blink away the tears that had begun to build up during the conversation. Her mom or dad should be the one to have a conversation like that, not her. “Got homework?”

“Yeah.”

Lucy sits back on her bed again and narrows her eyes. “How much?”

“A math worksheet and I gotta read a chapter for vocab.”

“Get any done yet?”

Allie shrugs. “I started reading.”

“I see,” Lucy nods. “You should keep working so you have most of it done when Mom comes home.”

After Allie hops off the stool and trudges out of her older sister’s room to work on her homework, Lucy lets a sigh flow out of her lungs as she relaxes and releases her shift. Flopping backwards on her bed, she runs a hand through her coarse hair, feeling the strands catch lightly between the little bumpy scales protecting her fingers. She scratches her nails lightly along her scalp to sooth a mild itch and closes her eyes. A nap would be great, if only she had the time.

The buzz of a text alert draws her attention, and Lucy sits up to reach for where she’d left her phone on her desk next to her bed. There’s a message from Anna that says she’ll walk home, and as Lucy is typing a quick reply, her phone vibrates again in her hand, a banner appearing across the top of the screen showing her a new text from Spider-Man, who she had listed as simply the spider emoji in her contacts. She sends her { Okay, be safe } to her sister and opens the new text.

[ just got out of school, i’m gonna take a quick swing around queens before i go home. i can stop by if you want me to ]

She smiles. It’s nice to know he’s willing to come check on her after only just meeting her the night before. Lucy almost says that he’s welcome over at any time, figuring he’s trustworthy and all as a superhero and wouldn’t do anything dangerous with an open invitation, but her smile turns into a frown as she realizes what that would mean for her family. If Spider-Man just shows up and acts like he’s met her before, which he has, or mentions anything about her adventures last night, it would raise too many difficult questions that she doesn’t want to answer for her sisters yet. He’d be a huge distraction anyway, and Allie would never finish her homework.

{ Thanks, but I think my sisters would ask a lot of questions I don’t want to answer rn. Maybe I’ll see you around later? }

[ haha yeah you’re right, i’ll keep away except for pure coincidences until you say so! ]

By the time Anna gets home, Lucy is working on the rest of her geometry work in her room. She hears the middle schooler start chatting with Allie, who must be doing her own homework at the kitchen table. It gives her enough warning to shift into smoother skin and hair before Anna wanders into her bedroom and leans her forearms on Lucy’s shoulders, peeping around her older sister’s head at her homework.

“Man, tenth grade math must suck,” she comments.

“Yeah, it does,” Lucy agrees. “How was your thing?”

Anna sighs—dare she say—wistfully? “It was pretty good. Nathan said he liked my shirt today,” she says lightly.

Oh yes, Nathan, the eight grade student leader in her art club, is the current light of Anna’s life. He can do no wrong, talented in art, French, and English and happy to help Anna however he can during whatever free time he has after their club meetings. From what she’s heard, Lucy isn’t all that impressed, but it’s not for her to judge when she knows all too well how finicky the world of middle school crushes is. It isn’t hard to listen to how cute she thinks he is, how sweet, how giddy he makes her feel. 

Lucy talks with her sister about her day a little bit longer, and then Anna asks about their parents, and if Lucy hates it as much as she does. It isn’t that Lucy hates the divorce proceedings, and she doesn’t think Anna really does either. She feels guilty about being such a cause for disagreement between her parents, even though she shouldn’t, and on top of that, she feels horrible about being bartered over like another piece of property or a pet rather than a child, and she says as much. 

For a moment or two, her little sister has no response, but Lucy can tell she’s thinking about her words. “Yeah,” she says at last, voice soft, “me too.”

That night, after both her younger sisters are fed and have gone to bed, Lucy tries to sit up and wait for her mom to come home. The sounds of the city make a compelling case for falling asleep, but Lucy feels like she has a responsibility to talk to her mother at least once today and tell her about Allie’s troubles with Briana and Anna’s time with her crush. She keeps her phone in her lap in case she gets a text or call about when she might get home from the lab while she watches a documentary about an archaeological hunt for proof of vikings in North America on Netflix. Maybe it’s silly, but she glances out the window every so often, too. Lucy doesn’t know if she’s hoping that Spider-Man will just appear at her door or that she’ll catch a glimpse of him swinging around out there, but she feels better knowing that he’s probably around somewhere. It’s comforting, she thinks to herself for the who-knows-how-many-th time that day, to have a superhero supporting you.

The documentary ends. Lucy checks the time; it’s past midnight. With a sigh and a tightening sensation in her chest, she gets off the couch in the living room to set up the coffee pot for tomorrow morning. The rich smell of the coffee beans as she grinds the appropriate amount fills the kitchen, and that, at least, brings a fond smile to Lucy’s face. She tucks herself into bed about a half-hour later, listening to the traffic sounds drifting to her residential street from the busier areas of the city, the white noise lulling her to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, the end of this chapter is not fun. Parents fight and a character dies "off-screen" so to speak, so heads up on that. Nothing graphic.

“I can’t believe your mom didn’t come home until this morning,” Zaria growls. She stabs at her salad and glares so hard at a tough-to-catch tomato that Lucy’s pretty sure she might melt it. “How the fuck is there even a case for her to keep custody of you guys?”

“Because my dad isn’t much better, but neither are terrible enough to make child services remove us from their care,” Lucy says, sullenly picking at her pizza.

Zaria hits the side of her fist against the table. “Bullshit. That’s it; I’m adopting you and your sisters.”

Gino had a similar reaction that morning when she saw him in first period. Like the loyal friend he was, he announced he was going to fight both her parents. In biology, after Gino explains everything to Mel, the girl nods and suggests emancipation.

“That way you can have custody of at least yourself. When you turn eighteen you can get custody of your sisters,” she says before turning to their teacher to let Lucy stew over it.

It sounds like a great idea to Lucy, at least at first. Where would she live? How would she pay for groceries and bills and stuff? She doesn’t have a job. Besides that, she doesn’t want to leave her sisters alone with her parents, either. Without her, how would they get on?

All of this hangs over Lucy for the next week like a dark cloud anchored by stones in her stomach. Eventually, though, like all mishaps with her parents, her mom’s temporary absence fades into the background, just another piece of the mosaic of her home life. Her dad comes back from his business trip just in time for Halloween, and he makes a big show of taking Allie out to trick-or-treat in her Wonder Woman costume. Her mom is home just long enough to say something about how Anna’s vampire costume is too slutty for a twelve-year-old, and then she’s gone again to “put in some extra hours at the lab,” which leaves Lucy alone in the house to hand out candy to the neighborhood kids and out-of-place high school boys with pillowcases. 

Her phone buzzes in her back pocket, and it shakes her out of her absent haze.

[ i’m going around neighborhoods to surprise kids. is your sister a spidey fan? ]

She smiles. { She’d probs love to meet you! she’s a smol Wonder Woman going around my area with my dad, he’s wearing tan pants and a black jacket }

[ i’ll make sure to go say hi if i spot them! ]

She smiles extra big for Allie when she comes home, face all lit up, gushing about meeting Spider-Man himself. Apparently he had a jack-o-lantern candy basket with him full of only Snickers, and he thought she really was Wonder Woman until she convinced him it was just a costume, and then—and this next bit was said with saucer-wide eyes and a reverent hush—he swung away with his webs.

Anna comes home at 10:47, seventeen minutes after their dad said she had to be home, but of course he has already gone into his office for the night and doesn’t even notice. Instead, Lucy gives her a gentle reprimand and tells her to at least text if she’s going to be home later than expected as she helps her sister wash fake blood and makeup off her face in the kitchen sink. Then Anna goes upstairs to probably eat too much candy and then go to sleep, leaving Lucy alone again. 

She can hear her dad snoring in his office. The doorbell rings. She answers it and hands candy to the group of preteens in Halloween store masks. The clock reads 11:23. She checks it again an eternity later. It reads 11:38. She stares down at the plastic bowl of candy in her hands, sitting on the stairs by the front door. The doorbell rings. She answers it and gives away more candy. 11:52. The doorbell rings. She hopes it’s the last of the stragglers. She answers it.

“Trick or treat!”

She gets the distinct impression that Spider-Man’s grin is a mile wide under his mask as he holds his plastic jack-o-lantern bucket out in front of him. With a snort, she steps out onto the front stoop and closes the front door behind her. “Been having a good Halloween?” she asks.

He nods. “Yeah, free candy! And it’s so fun to surprise kids, especially if they don’t notice I’m the real Spider-Man at first and just think I’m another trick-or-treater. There’s kids dressed like me, though, which is still weird? So cool, but a little weird.” He sits down on the concrete steps. “How’s your Halloween?”

With a shrug, she joins him. “It’s okay. My dad took Allie around, which was nice. Thanks for making her night, by the way.” Lucy sighs and looks up at the star-less sky. “My mom said she was gonna put in evening hours at the lab and hasn’t come back yet, which is fine. She’ll probably come home in a couple hours. Although a couple weeks ago she came back when we were leaving for school, which wasn’t great, but it hasn’t happened again yet.”

“That sucks,” Spider-Man answers. “At least your dad is home. You said he’s away a lot, right?”

“Business trips, yeah,” she nods. “I think he leaves again in a couple days.”

She sees him nod out in her periphery, and then a wrapper crinkles as he opens one of his many fun-sized Snickers. It catches her attention, and she’s about to ask how he’s going to eat it when the suit covers his mouth, but then he reaches up and folds what she guesses must be a separate mask piece up over his face, freeing his mouth and part of his nose. It’s sort of a funny look, but it definitely works.

They just sit on the porch for a while. It’s nice. Once he stops rambling on and on and settles down, Spider-man knows how to sit in silence. She’s the one to break it.

“Does it ever, like, make you want to give up? Being responsible for Queens, I mean.”

A Snickers wrapper crinkles in the silence that follows. Lucy looks over as he drops the balled-up plastic from his gloved fist into his pumpkin bucket. He takes a deep breath in, deep enough that she can hear him suck the air in through his nose before he blows it out in a sigh. “Sometimes,” he says. “The petty crimes never really stop happening, and it’s impossible to catch them all in the act. Every so often, a villain will pop up, and that’s always pretty challenging to deal with, and even once they’re dealt with there’s no guarantee they’re gone for good.” He pauses, then adds, “There are boring days more often than anything else, where nothing much happens, but it’s those hard days that stand out and make this feel like a constant struggle.” He picks through his Snickers for a moment, then offers her one. “I do have help, and it’s the people supporting me that keep me going. Also the overwhelming sense of responsibility that comes with taking up being a superhero. Like, it’s a vicious cycle: I started this because I have powers and, uh, tragic backstory reasons, I guess, and now people expect things from me, so that makes me feel like I can’t ever stop, and the more I do, the more I’m expected to do. If that makes sense.”

Chewing through caramel and peanuts, Lucy nods. “It makes sense,” she says.

“What’s on your mind that brought you to that question? It’s kind of a heavy question.”

Lucy shrugs. “Family stuff. A friend of mine suggested emancipation the other day. Just wondering if it’s worth considering seriously.” 

“Oh, shit, okay. Don’t you have to take a case before judge to do that? Do you think you could build a compelling case?” he asks.

“Maybe. Even if I could, I don’t know if that’s the best thing for me to do, you know?” She looks over at him, trying to gauge what he’s thinking just from the expression of his mouth. It’s better than trying to read him through the whole mask, but still difficult. “Like, if I left, my sisters would be on their own in our house, and I feel like I’d be better able to take care of them if I’m not emancipated. I don’t even know how I’d take care of myself.”

One corner of his lips pulls and turns down in a sort-of frown. “That’s a good point. Does emancipation feel like giving up to you? You asked about giving up.”

She shrugs again and shakes her head. “Kind of? I don’t know. It feels selfish, I guess, that I could get out but would have to leave my sisters behind, maybe for years.”

“Yeah, I get that. It’s like if you’re not doing everything you can for everyone else then you’re doing enough, and if you do something just for yourself, you shouldn’t be.”

“Yeah.”

They’re quiet again for a while. Lucy feels a little lighter, knowing someone so far removed from her own life knows and understands the deepest feelings she has, better than she does maybe. Eventually, Lucy tells him it’s late and that she should go to bed. He thanks her for letting him sit on her porch for such a long time talking, and she thanks him for listening and understanding and sharing his Snickers bars. With a soft thwip of his webs, he swings up out of the light of the street lamps, and as quick as he came, he’s gone.

November passes with two more visits with divorce lawyers and child advocates and yet another court hearing. She texts Spider-Man updates, and he checks if she needs anything each time, and one day he asks her for advice about a girl he knows, which is cute and cheers her up for a while. Her dad is in and out of town as usual, and her mom is…her mom. She’s home for a whole weekend for a change, just before Thanksgiving, and even commits to taking vacation days for all of her daughters’ three-day-long break from school. Lucy isn’t sure having her mom home so long is a good thing, though, because she seems restless and absent-minded almost the entire time.

When her mom spends two days straight out of the house the first week of December, then four days the next week, Lucy thinks that maybe it’s for the best. Christmas is coming up, though, and she doesn’t know how she’ll pull it all together this year with how much homework her teachers are giving her as the semester draws to a close. A few days before winter break starts, her dad comes home and says he took an extended vacation, so he’ll be home until after New Year’s. Lucy feels relief and dread all at once.

The tree and decorations go up, and her dad takes Lucy, Anna, and Allie out Christmas shopping. The air is thick with tension whenever her parents are in the same room, but they haven’t yelled at each other yet, so Lucy starts to ease from walking on eggshells to walking on tortilla chips.

[ MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!!! ] she gets around lunchtime.

{ MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!! } she sends at midnight, and receives a string of Christmas tree emojis back.

It feels almost like they’re just a normal family as they sit in the living room opening presents on Christmas morning. Lucy knows her dad ordered all the gifts labeled as “from Mom” because the tags are in her dad’s handwriting, but she chooses to believe her mom had at least some say in the process. She unwraps three new notebooks, each a different aesthetic, from Anna and almost drops her shift in excitement, and starts setting up the new Apple watch from her dad as soon as it’s polite.

The tension between her parents comes to a head in the days between Christmas and New Year’s, and their shouting reaches every corner of the house as they argue over whether or not Anna can go to her friend’s house for New Year’s Eve. Seeing Allie’s face so blank, as if she’s used to the fighting, hurts Lucy more than the fighting itself does, and she hates to see the way Anna sits stiff on the couch as she holds back tears and waits for her parents to give her an answer after they’re done insulting each other. She sits with Zaria on FaceTime in her room until it stops.

There’s no dread to dull the relief when her mom goes back to work and spends three days away at the lab. Then her dad does two loads of laundry, packs his suitcase, and leaves for the airport the next morning. 

Lucy gets a audio message from her dad later that day. He’s talking fast, and there’s a lot of background noise, but she can hear his voice clearly enough that it stops her heart.

“Luce, the plane is making an emergency landing—we’re over the ocean—in case I don’t make it, I want you to know I love you, kiddo, I love you and your sisters and even your mom. I love you so much, and I’m sorry for everything you’ve had to go through, and I’m so proud of you—“

It cuts off, and Lucy can’t breathe. She plays it again to make sure she heard it all. Her fingers are shaking. She taps “keep” as soon as the option comes up and runs to get her sisters and turn on the news, looking for any mention of a flight landing in the Atlantic. She looks on Twitter for breaking news. Nothing, until finally a report of a plane being forced to make a water landing in the Atlantic. No details, stay tuned for updates. Lucy tells Anna to call their mom. She doesn’t pick up. Lucy calls her grandparents, the paternal ones, to tell them the situation. They ask if her mom is there. Lucy lies and says she’s on her way home.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains underage drinking and swearing. Don't drink without adult supervision and consent, kids! Also, our fav spider boy being a genuine sweetheart.

After her assault in October, Lucy thought she would never drink alone again. Yet here she is, sitting on her front stoop with a bottle of cheap wine that tastes like watered-down cough syrup, trying to see past the lights of the city to the stars. She can’t. Too much light pollution. Lucy brings the glass bottle to her lips again for another swig.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the first day back at school after winter break, but Lucy doubts she could go to school even if she wanted to, not after the harrowing ordeal that had gone on for hours. The silence after that initial crash announcement was the worst part. Then reports came in as the rescue started. Boats and helicopters rushed to tend to the crash. 210 passengers, and Lucy and her sisters waited as they were accounted for: 58 injured, 12 dead. Her mom finally picked up as Lucy was trying to find out who the 12 dead passengers were. Her whole body went numb when she read her dad’s name.

Her mom came home shouting about calling multiple lawyers, had the courtesy to ask her daughters if they were okay, and then clunked two bottles of wine on the kitchen counter. She fished one out of the plastic shopping bag and stormed up the stairs to slam the master bedroom door. Lucy bit her lip, raked a hand through her hair, and told Anna and Allie to go upstairs and get ready for bed. Two hours later, her mom came down stairs, yelling at someone on the phone. She put her coat on and left the house without a word to Lucy. So that’s why Lucy is sitting on her front stoop with a bottle of cheap wine, unable to see any stars in the sky.

“You know,” a voice says from above, startling Lucy so much she almost drops the bottle, “I thought we went over this already. The drinking thing, I mean.” And then Spider-Man is sitting down next to her on the concrete steps before she even realizes he moved. “Are you okay?”

Lucy shrugs. “Not sure. My dad died today.” She takes another drink. “Want any o’ this?”

“Nah, I’m good.” Spider-Man is quiet for a second, and then says, “I’m sorry for your loss. Do you need someone to talk to?”

She laughs, and it sounds bitter even to her ears. “You’d be shocked, how many people ask ’f I need someone t’ talk to. I have so many fucking people t’ talk to. I have a fucking support system, ‘r whatever it’s called, y’know? It jus’…doesn’ fucking help with any o’ this shit. Ev’ryone’s so worried ’n’ concerned for poor Lucilla, ’cause her parents don’ love her ’n’ her sisters enough t’ take care of ’em, an’ they don’ love each other so they’re gettin’ a divorce, an’ then poor, poor Lucilla’s fucking dad dies,” she rants. The bottle feels heavy as she lifts it to take another swig of the cheap riesling. “A’ least there’s no more custody battle.”

They sit and listen to the sounds of downtown in the distance; the neighborhood is quiet at this hour. Lucy doesn’t know how much time goes by before Spider-Man asks, “Can I give you a hug?” It’s not like Lucy hasn’t gotten plenty of hugs already that day from her sisters and her friends and even a teacher or two, and usually she’s not a very touchy-feely person. If he had asked if she needed a hug, or if she wanted a hug, Lucy would have said that no, she didn’t. Right now, though, she’s drunk, and he simply offered a hug without asking if she needed it, and damn it all but she still remembers how safe his arm felt around her shoulders when he walked her home the last time he found her drunk. So Lucy puts the bottle down with a clink and falls sideways onto his shoulder, and she just cries. She cries and cries, ugly-sobbing and snot-running crying. 

It feels really, really good to be held by a friendly neighborhood superhero while you cry into their well-muscled shoulder. He doesn’t say anything, just keeps his hands splayed on her back and rocks a little with his head leaning on hers, chest expanding and contracting against hers as he breathes evenly and steadily. It’s warm and secure and comforting and wholly non-judgmental. Somewhere in Lucy’s drunk and hazy mind, she realizes that the boy under this suit must be some kind of absolute cinnamon roll if he’s willing to not only give her his phone number so she can personally reach him if she ever needs him but also to sit and let her cry on him even when she doesn’t ask him to.

When she finally runs out of energy and tears, Lucy lifts her arm to wipe her face on the sleeve of her hoodie. She sighs and takes another moment to relish the feeling of being totally protected before sitting up. The January night air feels much colder now after being surrounded by Spider-Man’s body heat, but she sniffs to clear her nose and ignores the chill.

“Thanks,” she says.

“You’re welcome.”

“Um…” Lucy clears her throat. “How’d you know I was outside drinkin’ again?”

He laughs a little before answering, “I didn’t. I actually, uh, wanted some advice, and you weren’t answering your phone. You’ve always answered pretty fast, so after a while waiting I came to see if you were okay.”

Lucy smiles. “Thank you, tha’s really sweet.” She picks up the bottle again and considers it. Really, she should stop. She doesn’t want an even bigger hangover tomorrow than she would already have. With a sigh, Lucy screws the lid back on the top—yes, that’s how cheap the wine is—and puts the bottle back down. “So what’cha need?”

“Oh, it can wait until tomorrow, it’s okay—“

“Wha’s th’ matter? You don’ want drunk advice? S’metimes drunk advice’s th’ best advice.”

Spider-Man shakes his head. “No, it’s just late, and I should be getting home before anyone notices I’m gone, y’know?”

Lucy nods. “A’right, fair enough.” She wishes she could see his face. It’s hard not having a face to look at when you’re talking to someone. She can’t tell if he’s smiling or frowning, and it’s kind of frustrating sometimes, though usually she can hear it in his voice. Like right now, he sounds kind of disappointed, but she can’t know for sure because she can only see the white eyes of his mask.

Whoever is under the mask was raised with a sense of good manners, and that’s something Lucy has been able to tell time and time again no matter if she’s drunk or sober, even with a mask in the way of his face. He helps her stand up as he does, and with how he had stretched his legs out rather than tuck them close like Lucy had, he’s standing on the front walk and she’s standing on the bottom concrete step. It levels their heights—actually, it puts Lucy a couple inches higher than him—and puts them in a good position for another hug. It’s quick, just to say goodnight, but Lucy is grateful for it all the same.

Wiping crust from the corners of her eyes, Lucy sits up the next morning and reaches for her phone. He said he’d texted her while she was outside. Blinking at the light of the screen in her still semi-dark bedroom, sure enough, she finds a hoard of messages from Spider-Man sent last night, and a couple from this morning. She ignores the ones she missed, as they’re mostly just short “hey”s to try and get a response, and squints to read the more recent ones without her glasses.

[ good morning, i hope you don’t have too much of a headache! i’m in school until 3:45 if you need me ]

[ oh btw when i wanted to ask you for advice last night it was about this girl i know and she asked me to go to a movie with her but idk if she meant as friends as as a date and i’m going to see the movie with her, i already agreed, but i don’t know WHY so i was wondering if you had any insight on that or something idk i’m not good at girls and i my other friend is a guy and he doesn’t know either and the last time i went on a date with a girl it was homecoming last year and her dad turned out to be a crazy blackmarket alien weapons dealer that i had to fight and i almost died so understandably i’m freaking out a little about the whole date or not thing help please ]

Lucy smiles down at her phone. His panic is obvious in his typos and the long punctuation-less run-on sentence, and Lucy wonders if this girl he knows is the same girl he mentioned in November. That time, he wanted her opinion on what to do when this girl he knows was coming over to his apartment for the first time with his other friend. In Lucy’s opinion, Spider-Man really, really likes this girl he knows. He was nervous and didn’t know what to do before because, Lucy could tell, he was anxious about impressing her. Now, he’s nervous and doesn’t know what to do, she thinks, because he’ll be alone with her and doesn’t want to misconstrue the situation and offend her. It’s all very cute. 

After she eats some cereal and makes sure her sisters both eat something, because they’re home today, too, Lucy takes a moment to text him back with her advice. It’s only around nine, so she doubts he’ll be able to check his messages until at least his lunch period, but she wants to make sure the text gets sent anyway.

{ I say just wait and see how she acts and then respond accordingly. She invited you so she’ll probably set the tone of it based on what she expects. If she’s being normal then you should be normal. If she’s rly obvious abt flirting, then you have your answer. Also you should figure out whether YOU want it to be as friends or as dates so you know how to react if she does flirt. If you can’t tell if she’s flirting or if she’s as normal as always and you still have doubts then JUST ASK HER OMG. She’ll probs appreciate your honesty }

Later in the day, after Lucy has sat on the couch and watched non-stop Disney movies for hours, her phone buzzes. She’d already had it in her hand from texting Zaria, Mel, and Gino about if she was okay and what she missed in class and how long she’ll be out of school, so all she has to do is press the button with her thumb to see a message from the spider emoji on her lock screen. After she unlocks her phone, she reads:

[ thanks that’s a good point i can always just ask her…but that’s kind of terrifying? she’s kind of terrifying. great, super smart, but she is like the most self confident and empowered person i know so that’s a thing, like i don’t know if she’ll be mad that i thought it could be a date because she might say “what, you don’t think boys and girls can be friends without it being romantic?” because that’s the kind of thing she would get mad at me for ]

{ Well do you want it to be a date? }

Spider-Man goes back and forth between typing and not typing and typing again, so while Lucy waits, she reflects briefly on how weird the situation is that she’s in. Her dad just died and she’s giving a teenaged superhero relationship advice. And yet, she feels better. He’s doing an excellent job of distracting her from her life right now, and that’s really all she wants. She knows she’ll have to step back up soon, especially since there’s no hope of changing the situation with her mom anymore, but Lucy just wants to forget about all of it, if only for a little while.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this chapter, I wanted to do my best to describe the way depression can feel. This is based on my personal experience with depressive episodes, just adapted and a little embellished for Lucy. Everyone's struggle is unique and no less real or valid than anyone else's. If you're dealing with mental health problems, please reach out and ask your loved ones for help. If you have a friend going through some tough times, please be there for them and support healthy coping mechanisms if you can.

As time goes on and Lucy leaves her dad’s death weeks then months behind her, it becomes very apparent that her mom has no intention of stepping up to the plate of being a single parent. If anything, her dad’s death makes her mom even more absent. She starts staying at the lab sometimes for whole weeks, without even a call or text to check in on her daughters. When she is home, she closes herself up in her bedroom until she leaves again the next morning. Lucy finds herself parenting her sisters even more than she had before, and it’s stressful. It wears on her as she takes full charge of everyone’s laundry, helps Anna and Allie with their homework, grocery shops with her mom’s card and plans dinners. She doesn’t know how to pay the bills, but their water hasn’t been shut off yet, so she assumes her mom is at least taking care of the utilities.

Zaria insists that she needs to get ahold of her mom so she can make all this known, but Lucy knows that she could never get her mom home and focused long enough to discuss life with her. She’s too busy throwing herself into her genetics research to listen to anything as mundane as why she should be around more often so her daughters can feel some of the parental love of which they’re so starved. If Zaria is a mender, then Mel is an escapist. She suggests that Lucy look into taking her sisters to live somewhere else, bringing up the old thought from months ago.

“Where else can I go, Mel?” Lucy asks, head on her desk. “I can’t support them by myself. I’m not even old enough to work a full-time job or rent an apartment by myself. I literally have nowhere else to live.”

“Your grandparents live kind of close, right?” Gino reminds her. “Maybe you can ask them if you and your sisters can stay with them.”

Lucy sighs. “But what about school? I can’t make them drive us to our individual schools everyday, and they don’t live in range of our busses.”

“Then wait out the rest of the school year and pack your bags for the summer,” Mel says. “It’s almost May. You can make it happen. Your mom’s parents are the ones here in Queens, right? You guys are pretty close to them, so I’m sure they’d love to help out.”

It’s a good idea, but Lucy can’t fathom how she would be able to work it out. Logically, she knows Mel and Gino are right, and it wouldn’t be so difficult, but at the same time, she’s so exhausted from functioning as student and stand-in mother that she can’t muster up the motivation to think about it. By mid-May, Lucy is feeling so low and dejected by her mom’s apparent abandonment and tired and worn out by trying to hold her family together, not to mention drained by hanging onto a normal-looking form at home in addition to school, that one day she wakes up and just—can’t. She can’t. Lucy can not physically scrape together the energy to get out of bed, so she doesn’t. When Anna pops her head in Lucy’s door to see if she’s okay, Lucy curls so her sister can’t see her face and weakly announces that she doesn’t feel well and is just going to skip school that day, and she makes Anna promise to see that Allie gets on the school bus. The next time her mom comes home she’ll get her to sign a note to excuse the absence if she feels up to it, but Lucy has no hope left in her to even give that thought more than a brief passing attention.

It sucks. This fucking sucks. Lucy doesn’t even want to get up to pee, and she’s certainly not hungry. Her skin feels tight and claustrophobic, like her scales are encapsulating her inside of them. She doesn’t want them on her. They don’t feel like they’re a part of her. Right now, what she does want is someone to be there for her, someone she doesn’t have to pretend in front of. She considers calling Zaria and asking her to come over, but she doesn’t want to make her friend skip school to visit her, and she’d have to shift into her normal form to see her. Lucy doesn’t even want to think about shifting. Interacting with the layer coating her body makes her stomach flip and her chest constrict. She kind of just wants to curl up in bed all day and give up on everything, even if she dies there, suffocated by her own skin, which she knows is really, really wrong. She should call someone. Who, though?

{ Hey so what time does your school start }

[ not for like another hour give or take, why? ]

{ I feel like shit can you come over }

{ You’re the only one I don’t have to look normal to and my school starts rly soon so I don’t want to make my other friends miss any class }

[ i can be there in five minutes, ten if you want a churro ]

{ I’m not hungry but thanks }

[ cool, see you in five ]

The doorbell rings in four minutes, but Lucy’s ribs are collapsing and squeezing her heart and she can’t even sit up, so she texts him which bedroom window is hers, the one in the back of the house with the navy blue faux-velvet curtains. Her gut rolls, and she feels terrible about not being able to let him in when he was considerate enough to wait at the front door. The house is old enough that there’s no screen, and she knows she left it cracked open to let in last night’s breeze. It’s only a few seconds until he raps twice on the glass before sliding the window open and parting her drawn curtains as he slips in. He lets the morning sunlight in with him, and Lucy curls her arms over her eyes to block out the brightness.

“Hey, good morning,” he says first, then Lucy hears the sound of her curtains being pushed open all the way, accompanied by more light. “Wow, your room looks like a minimalist aesthetic post but not freakishly clean.”

His voice is like a muscle relaxer, and she can breathe again. Lucy moves her arms from her face and lifts her head. The sheets rustle with a dry scrape as her scaled skin shifts against them. She can’t register their cotton feel. Spider-Man stands in the middle of her bedroom, wearing jeans and a thin zip-up hoodie, sleeves pushed up, with his mask just slipped over his face. Any other day she might be more amused by the image, but she doesn’t feel anything but hollow and imprisoned all at once. Anyway, he’s right, she totally tried to imitate a minimalist aesthetic with her white walls, dove-gray duvet cover, and streamlined steel-and-wood desk. He’s also right in saying that it isn’t anything like freakishly clean. With her life the way it is as of late, Lucy hasn’t cleaned her room in weeks, and there are clothes and school papers everywhere.

Spider-Man crosses her room, stepping carefully to avoid the laundry strewn across her floor, and sits at her desk chair, straddling it backwards so he can face in her direction. “So what’s up?” he asks. “Do you feel sick?”

Lucy shakes her head, and it aggravates a headache she didn’t know she had until this moment. “I just can’t be a person today,” she answers. “I just feel like—like trash.” A sack of dirt. An empty bottle. Those stupid plastic rings they use to keep pop cans in a linked pack. Trash.

“Oh.” Spider-Man nods. “So, kind of just like you don’t have the will to move or do anything except lay in bed, right? It’s like being under blankets is the next best thing to crawling under a rock?” When Lucy whimpers out an “mhm” Spider-Man sighs. “Yeah, I’ve been there. When my uncle died, I felt like it was my fault. It’s a long story, but the point is that for a really long time, I was so worn down by carrying that guilt around that it took over me and I just broke down in the bathroom at school one day and my friend had to call my aunt for me to tell her I needed to go home, and then I stayed in bed basically all weekend because I was so depressed that I stopped being able to function.”

For a few minutes, Lucy let his story sink in. She certainly feels like she’s unable to function. Is this depression? For a moment, she tries to put what she knows into words to tell him. Then she tells him. “I feel like I’m doing everything,” she says quietly. “My mom is gone more often than she’s here, like for days at a time, and I feel like I’m the only responsible adult in my family, and I’m only fifteen. And now that there’s no question about custody in a divorce, we’re stuck like this, and I don’t see how it’s ever going to get any better. On top of that, I’m a freak, and I have to hide it from everyone. All the time, I’m pretending, and I have to focus on keeping this image of what I should look like, and I have to act like I know what to do for my sisters. I’m just exhausted. I can’t do this anymore.” Lucy stops talking when a lump rises in her throat, making her voice thick. She rolls and buries her face among her arms and the blankets. For a few minutes, she lets the lump fade back into the depthless numbness she had been feeling before. That bland, hopeless exhaustion was easier than crying, and Lucy prefers it right now. “I guess I’m stuck,” she says, her voice muffled, “and I’m too tired to fix it.”

Spider-Man hums like he understands, and Lucy guesses he must. He went through a bad patch too. “You know what helped me get out of bed?” he asks. When Lucy doesn’t respond, because she doesn’t know how to, he says, “My aunt talked me through a whole bunch of rationalities about why I wasn’t to blame for what happened. So I’m going to help you rationalize through this, why you’re not as stuck as you think you are, and then when you’re feeling okay enough to get up, I’m making you French toast.”

Lucy raises her head to look at him. “Wait, what?”

“We’re gonna talk through this, and then I’m gonna make French toast.” He shrugs, and it’s a movement that screams “teenaged boy” so loudly that Lucy’s brain really, truly registers that she has a boy in her bedroom, albeit a friendly neighborhood superhero boy. She almost feels shy, but the pit of depression wins out and she drops her head back onto her pillow as Spider-Man gets up and comes over to her bed. “Can I sit?” he asks, and when Lucy nods, he situates himself criss-cross-applesauce-style at the foot of her bed.

It occurs to Lucy that maybe she should at least sit up to mirror him. If he’s going to go through the trouble of trying to help her, she might as well give it her best shot, and sitting up seems like a manageable thing to accomplish right now. Fighting the desperate urge to pull her blankets up over her head and just stay like that forever, Lucy drags herself upright, bringing a hand up to massage her textured forehead. Her headache, upon her body becoming vertical rather than horizontal, becomes exponentially worse.

When Spider-Man says nothing, Lucy sighs. “Okay, talk me through it then.” She can feel the lump beginning to come back up in her throat.

He talks her through it. He does a remarkably good job of it, too, being patient with her and circling back every time she loses the pieces of hope and determination he feeds her. Lucy’s limbs start to feel less like they’re made of lead, and the scales start to feel more like they’re a part of her again. As they talk, and Spider-Man encourages her to dig deeper into where all of this is coming from, they find that the topic of her mom is pretty straightforward to sort out: whether her mother loves Lucy and her sisters or not, Lucy is surrounded by plenty of other people who love her and her sisters, and all she needs to do is pick up her phone and ask her grandparents for help, like her friends said. Spider-Man really supports the idea when she tells him about it. Lucy even smiles at the thought of being away, and when she thinks about it, like really considers it with his help, she realizes that it really wouldn’t be so hard to ask.

The troubling bit is her complete inability to grasp onto the hope that her grandparents would agree. That comes from Lucy believing she would be a burden, and that comes from Lucy believing that everything about her life is complicated by constantly guarding this heavy secret, constantly hiding behind normalcy while her abilities and real appearance sink like a stone in her gut. It boils down to Lucy and her unresolved identity crisis brought on by her transformation. Even deeper, Spider-Man manages to dig up a little parasite that is the very root to all her problems: Lucy blames her mother. Away in some buried, hidden corner of her brain, she blames her mother for ruining her personal life and ripping apart her family life. It stares Lucy in the face now that it’s in the light, angry and red-hot and awful.

After that revelation, Spider-Man talks her up to a fragile optimism. Every wound they found in her psyche, he touches with a healing fingertip, like ET, giving her some word of encouragement or truth or perspective, some piece of ammunition to use against her own self-destruction. When Lucy can rub her hands up and down her rough arms and actually feel the friction like she should again, Spider-Man hops off her bed and holds out his hand. It’s bare; no suit separates them except for where his mask hides his face. Lucy takes his hand and accepts his help to pull herself up and out of bed and onto her feet. The pads of his fingers feel prickly, like the tiniest velcro hooks to ever exist.

“There you go!” he says once she’s standing upright.

Lucy can hear his grin in his voice, and she knows he’s proud of her. She smiles back. “Thank you for this,” she says.

He shrugs. “Yeah, of course. Oh, but, don’t thank me yet! I still have to make breakfast.” He holds up his wrist to look at his watch. “Oh. Shit. Uh, I’m making us brunch, actually.”

Her lingering headache doesn’t appreciate when Lucy turns quickly to look at the clock on her desk. “Oh my God, it’s 10:47,” she says, turning again to face him. “It’s 10:47,” she repeats. “I made you skip, like, three classes.”

“Two. Just two classes.” He clears his throat and nods. “Yeah. This is fine. It was just Spanish and biology.”

“I’m so sorry.” 

“Don’t be! Really, it’s okay. I am totally okay with skipping school to help you out. I might as well just come in after lunch anyway at this point; I mean, half a day of absence goes on my record whether I miss a full half or only a quarter, so I might as well just take the full half, right? Yeah. Sure, why not.” He looks back to her and switches the topic. “You have eggs, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, we have eggs. Feel free to search around in the kitchen,” Lucy tells him. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom and then I’ll come down.”

As it turns out, Spider-Man makes really good French toast. His aunt taught him how, he says, because it’s easy to make despite seeming really fancy, and it’s exactly the sort of thing that would impress a girl someday, so he was told. When Lucy raises her eyebrows at him across the table, he backpedals.

“Not, you know, that I’m trying to, uh, impress you or—or anything, just, like, I know you probably still don’t feel like doing much, and, well, it’s better than—than cereal—“

“Don’t worry,” Lucy says after she swallows. She offers him a small, teasing smile. “I know you’re not trying to impress me. I was just wondering if you ever plan on making French toast for that girl you know.”

Spider-Man chokes on his milk as he’s drinking it, coughing into his glass and getting the bottom part of his mask wet with flying milk drops. He rolled it up over his nose again so he could eat, and now he stretches it out away from his face, his mouth open in a frown of disgust. It’s a funny enough situation that Lucy laughs. She passes him a napkin, and he tries to blot the material of his mask dry while she tries to get her laughter under control so she can keep eating.

After they settle back down, they finish up eating in comfortable silence. Lucy helps him clean up, and as he’s scrubbing off the electric skillet he used to fry the French toast slices, he says, “I can’t just make her French toast. That would be weird. ‘Hey, MJ,’” he mimes, “‘do you want French toast sometime?’”

“You just gotta come up with a reasonable breakfast food scenario,” Lucy advises. “Like, ‘Hey, MJ,’” she says, impersonating Spider-Man’s voice, which isn’t much lower than her own, “‘my friend and I are marathoning movies all night at my place, do you want to join us?’ And then in the morning you make breakfast.” Spider-Man makes a noncommittal noise. Lucy finishes putting the dishes in the dishwasher and looks over at him. “So her name is MJ?”

Spider-Man goes stiff, as if he realizes he let slip something he shouldn’t have. “Uh, yeah, MJ. I, uh—you weren’t supposed to—I mean, I wasn’t supposed to say, uh, names.”

Lucy smiles a soft smile. “Hey, it’s okay. I won’t tell anyone that Spider-Man has a crush on a girl named MJ. Trust me, I understand wanting your privacy.”

At her words, he relaxes. “Okay, great, thank you—wait, I don’t have a crush on her!”

“Alright, okay, fine, Spider-Man most certainly does not have a crush on a girl named MJ.” She shoots him a smirk. “He just begs his only other female friend for advice about interacting with her. Don’t forget you admitted you wanted that movie to be a date!”

“I—okay, listen, I—“ When Lucy starts laughing again, Spider-Man crosses his arms, having finished with his part of the dishes. “Well, you’re feeling better now, so I guess I’ll just go somewhere I’m more appreciated.”

Lucy stops laughing, his words sparking a shock of panic in her chest. “Wait, no! I’m sorry…don’t go yet.”

“It’s okay, I’m kidding.” He checks his watch. “I should get going pretty soon, though.”

Lucy nods, and an internal void starts to open again. He must be able to see it in her face, because he steps across her kitchen and pulls her into a hug. He gives, just, the best hugs. Like, Lucy’s pretty sure part of his superpower package comes with superhuman hugging skills. His arms are wrapped around her upper back, and she hugs him around his waist like a giant arachnoid teddy bear. Snug and secure. 

“I’m just a text away, and I’ll try to reply even in the middle of class. And I can come over after school, too, if you want,” he says, giving her a squeeze before stepping back.

Lucy sighs. “Thanks,” she says, “but it’s probably best if you don’t come over when my sisters are home.”

“Right. Well, if you change your mind, just let me know.”

“I will, I promise.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while! I'm not great at updating regularly, as my audience on FanFiction already knows lol. Mention of death in this chapter, as well as some detailed description of Lucy's scales and the feeling of shifting at the end, in case that grosses anyone out. Also, since last chapter was about depicting her experience with depression, and there's some more mention of grief and anxiety here, I wanted to include the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: if you're having a crisis and need to talk to someone, call 1-800-273-8255, 1-888-628-9454 in Spanish, 1-800-799-4889 for deaf/hard of hearing, or text HOME to 741741 (thanks to NPR on twitter for posting the Spanish and deaf/hoh numbers I didn't know were available). Enjoy, and stay safe and healthy!

Even after he goes back to school, after Lucy has to shift into her normal image when her sisters get home, and after she forces herself to get up and go to school the next day, and the day after that, and the week after that, Spider-Man’s support is always in her mind. She’s loved. She has friends in her corner. She doesn’t have to shoulder it alone. She only needs to ask and she can have help. People want to help because people care about her and her sisters. What’s done is done, but she has control over the present and the future. She is going to survive.

That gets her through May. With Zaria sitting beside her one afternoon, Lucy even works up the courage to call Nonna Lucia to ask if she and her sisters can stay with her for the summer. Once the situation is explained, her maternal grandmother is more than happy to help, and she promises to try and talk with Lucy’s mom, too. Everything is going well. Final exams are in a couple days, and Lucy feels okay enough that she thinks she’ll be able to take them and hopefully pass, though she’s not confident in her ability to handle studying. She still struggles to find the drive to function sometimes, but as long as Zaria is there, and as long as she plays Spider-Man’s words over and over in her head, she can manage.

“Remind me to thank Spider-guy next time I see him in the street,” Zaria says. “I’m glad he helped you.”

“Z, I’m sorry—“

Zaria slings her arm around Lucy’s shoulders and smiles. “No, it’s okay. I don’t have any experience with depression, and you said he does. I can’t say I fully understand how you’re feeling, but if he’s in a better position to help you, then you don’t have to apologize. You have every right to get help from whoever helps you, okay, babe? I’m always here to support you, but it’s good that you’re getting support from other, more qualified people too.”

Halfway through exam week, Lucy gets a text from her mom, which is rare. Her grandma and grandpa—her dad’s parents—died in their sleep, she learns. Carbon monoxide poisoning. There was a leak in their house. The CO detector’s batteries were missing, so they suffocated without even knowing it.

Lucy slips. She falls back into numb grief for a little while, and her fragile hope flickers and almost goes out. Why? Why is this happening? First her dad goes and traps her with her mom, then her grandparents go and cut away even more people she loved. The funeral is her second of the year, and it’s really disproportionate to the rest of her life, considering the last time she had to attend a funeral was before Allie was even born.

When school gets out and Nonno Alberto comes to her house to pick up Lucy, Allie, and Anna, their mom is home. It’s weird to see her home during the day, but it’s less weird when she won’t help the girls take their suitcases and backpacks to the car or come tell them goodbye. She barely even greets her own father, and Nonno Alberto shares a sad look with his eldest granddaughter, a look that says, “Yes, I see what you mean, and I’m sorry you had to handle this on your own for so long.” Zaria, Mel, and Gino are there to help, though. Mel chatters to Anna about the twelve-year-old’s burgeoning interest in women’s rights. Nonno Alberto asks Gino about his family’s bakery as they both lift luggage into the trunk of her grandfather’s semi-ancient sedan. Allie bounces in the backseat and makes faces at them through the rear window. 

This leaves Zaria free to regard Lucy with her look of motherly concern and offer her a hug with open arms. Lucy takes it, lifting her arms to wrap around her friend’s shoulders and neck, accepting the rare full embrace—the girls link arms or toss an arm around shoulders or sit crushed together all the time, but though they’re touching, Zaria isn’t one for tight hugs like this. It shows. Though Lucy really appreciates the show of physical support and comfort, Zaria pulls away after only a few seconds. And, as much as she hates herself for comparing two of her friends like this, Lucy notes a stark difference between Zaria’s hug and the hugs Spider-Man has given her. Something subtly different is communicated. It’s things like their arm placement, the squeezing pressure, the length of duration, sure, but all those things only tell Lucy what she would expect in two hugs from one non-hugger longtime female friend and one apparently-a-hugger not-so-longtime-but-close-due-to-shared-secrets male friend. What she doesn’t expect is the difference in...energy? Zaria hugs like she supports Lucy and wants to be there for her and cares for her so much because they’ve known each other so long that they’re basically sisters in spirit. Spider-Man hugs like he understands her and knows exactly what she needs because he’s been through it too and cares for her so much because he can see himself in her and just knows she needs to feel loved. It’s different. Lucy can’t really explain how she can tell, but she can. Both of them make her feel warm and fuzzy inside, and she can tell how much they both love her.

Living with her nonno and nonna isn’t weird the first day or two, since Lucy and her sisters spend weekends with their grandparents pretty often. It does start to feel weird after about a week, when it finally sinks in that Lucy doesn’t have to do everything anymore. Her Nonna Lucia cooks dinner. Her Nonno Alberto takes them to the corner deli to pick up cannoli. They watch Jeopardy and Family Feud. Lucy can read the book she was assigned for summer work without worrying if her sisters are okay. On Sunday mornings they go to mass and then out for lunch afterwards. Once she gets used to it, Lucy enjoys it—this is what life should be like at fifteen. Well, this is what life should be like at sixteen, too, but she doesn’t turn sixteen until July. 

The only downside is how much farther away her friends are, now. She’s still in Queens, but she can’t just walk a couple blocks over to Zaria’s or Gino’s anymore. To make up for it, Lucy texts them constantly, and the group chat the four of them have has never been more active. Sometimes she does visit them, and a few times she sleeps over at Zaria’s for a couple days, but it’s not the same as living closer to them. At least her relationship with Spider-Man isn’t affected very much, since she rarely saw him in person anyway. He checks in with her pretty often to make sure she’s doing okay, and Lucy checks in with him to see how he’s doing with MJ. She’s super excited when he tells her they started dating a week before her birthday.

When she does turn sixteen, Nonna Lucia insists on a birthday party, even just a small one, so they have Zaria, Mel, and Gino over for dinner and cake and presents. It doesn’t even bother Lucy too much when her mom doesn’t show up. She does sort of wish Spider-Man was able to come, since he had become such an important part of her life now, but she understands that he can’t just show up. He texts her “happy birthday” with plenty of emojis instead and promises to swing by soon. 

A couple days later she’s out on the front porch, reading under the moth-covered outdoor light to get some space away from her sisters and grandparents, when she hears a thump above her. It scares her, and she shuts her book, prepared to fend off...something, but then the red-masked face of her friend pops into view from above the porch overhang. Lucy smiles, and they have a nice catching-up chat, during which Spider-Man asks the obligatory question, “How does it feel to be sixteen?” He poses it in a fake-deep voice, miming an older man, poking fun at the adults who always ask the same stupid question every birthday. It’s nice. Lucy enjoys seeing him. He leaves her with another hug and a promise to text her again soon.

Actually, no, Lucy can think of one other downside besides the distance from her friends: because her grandparents’ place is smaller than her mom’s house, the girls have to share the guest bedroom. Lucy would be okay with it normally, but after the incident that gave her her abilities, she’s very glad to have her own room so that she doesn’t have to keep up her appearance all the time. Now, she can’t relax unless she’s in the bathroom or somewhere else alone, like the front porch. Eventually, Lucy thinks, it might be nice to tell her family about her abilities, but now she feels trapped by time. Her transformation happened now almost a year and a half ago, so how could she tell anyone this late? It would be admitting that she didn’t trust her family at the time—and, in a way, that’s still true. She trusts her family, but not with this, not really. It’s more about not trusting who might find out if she lets it slip to even one other person who doesn’t fully grasp the magnitude of the secret. Spider-Man she trusts because he knows firsthand how sensitive the knowledge of her abilities is. Anyway, the point is that Lucy can’t relax her shift inside the house, and she has to be very careful about what position she falls asleep in so that her sisters won’t notice if they wake up before she does.

The rest of Lucy’s summer passes by pretty quickly. As the first day of school approaches, she notices her grandparents sharing worried looks and exchanging hushed conversation. She catches her mom’s name. Worry begins to gnaw away at Lucy’s stomach. She wonders why they haven’t talked about moving back yet, or shopping for school supplies, or if her mom is ready to face her responsibilities yet. When school is finally only a week and a half away, Nonno Alberto suggests one last outing for ice cream after dinner before they all have to start thinking of moving back home. Allie and Anna readily agree, but Lucy decides to stay home. She and Zaria had scheduled a FaceTime conversation for that evening to talk about back-to-school shopping plans, and she doesn’t want to feel rushed while eating ice cream or get Zaria’s call while she’s out.

Once her nonno, nonna, and sisters are out the door and down the street in the almost-ancient sedan, the house is quiet. With a deep breath and a roll of her shoulders, Lucy lets go of her tightly-gripped shift. Her skin ripples and tingles and her scalp prickles as her illusions fall away. There’s this feeling of looseness, too, like she’s finally unclenching a muscle that she kept flexed for too long. Before this summer, Lucy had more opportunities for small breaks so that she only had to hold a shift for half her day, but now, she’s maintaining the image of a normal person for long stretches of time late into the evening. It’s taxing. It feels good to relax. Lucy stretches in her grandparents’ living room, extending the free feeling to her body muscles, and she sighs in relief.

A year and a half indeed. Those first few days had been hellish—first she had woken in the middle of the night, itching all over, feeling every inch of her skin crawl and tingle and burn. Her fingers and toes stung at the nail beds, and her scalp was on fire. Confused, tortured, and half-asleep, Lucy remembers crying, scratching at her skin, and eventually falling back to sleep, only to wake horrified the next morning. The first time she had seen her scales was in her bedroom mirror, patterned across her face and hands. The skin felt stiff when her eyes widened and her jaw dropped, like she had just gotten a sunburn and hadn’t moisturized at all. In the bathroom, she stripped down naked to gawk at the layer of raised and hardened scales all over her body, like a lizard, ordered and methodical in their dispersion, with lines of softer skin running in the breaks between each individual scale. Some places were more delicately armored, like around her eyes, under her arms, and between her thighs, but the scales were still there, if smaller and thinner in comparison to the thick shapes, almost like plates, that ran down her back and over her shoulders and hips. She showered, shocked at the now exceptionally wiry texture of her hair, and found that despite the terror that made her hands shake she liked the way soap slicked over the smooth, solid texture of the scales.

It wasn’t until she had worked herself up into a full-blown anxiety attack about what she was going to do about facing the world like this that her first shift happened, completely beyond her control. It hurt, and if she weren’t already crying from freaking out then the strange pain of her skin rippling and changing would have brought her to tears. First her skin rippled and became the exact color of her bedroom carpet, then her gray duvet, then a striped mix of her white walls and blue curtains. Wonder trumped the fear, then, and Lucy went from being a scared girl with a horrible affliction to an awestruck person with new abilities. It felt at first like being singed by boiling water and stung by bees all over, but she figured out how to smooth out her skin and turn her hair into silky curls again. That day at school was horrible, and she learned nothing because all her energy and focus was spent on making sure she stayed normal-looking all day. She napped for two hours when she got home, exhausted by the effort.

After a couple weeks, the pain of shifting her skin faded into the tingle she was now so used to. Lucy discovered she could shift her shape, too—one night she managed to completely change the bridge of her nose, but it hurt so much, like braces and growing aches to the nth degree, that she dropped it after only a few minutes and didn’t want to try again. Only a handful of times since her transformation had she tried to do that again, and she didn’t try without taking painkillers first. If she really had to do it, Lucy is pretty sure her stamina by now is good enough that she could hold on to a disguise for a while, but she knows it would be painful with of her lack of practice.

For now, though, it’s easy enough—almost effortless—to shift her thickened and frankly kind of gross fingernails through all the colors of the rainbow as she waits for Zaria to call.


End file.
